Home > Letters to CRJohnny Bacardi On Thriller As An Undeveloped Cross-Media Propertyposted July 31, 2009

Just wanted to comment on your inclusion of Thriller in the "Ten Comics-Related Projects I'd Develop In Other Media, Or Hurry Along" article- I've long thought that Thriller would be tailor-made for film or TV, because of the (mostly) non-fantastic aspect of its characters. Other than the Angie Thriller character herself, ("a cross between Jesus Christ and my mom", as Fleming described her once) none of the others really had any super powered abilities at all, at least not how we think of them in regards to comics. Most of your effects budget would be spent on Angie, and perhaps making Beaker Parrish appear as tall as he's supposed to be.

One thing I kinda take issue with you on, though, is your, well, "disdain" is too strong a word, but your opinion of the Dan Grove character; it's true, he's a Gary Sandy-type wimp and a bit vanilla when compared to his fellow Seconds. But he was also designed to be the everyman through whose eyes we met the more exotic Seven Seconds, and his inner conflicts (and his eventual acquisition of a backbone) were to me compelling parts of the first few issues. However, he seemed to become less important to the series as a whole as we got into the end of Fleming's tenure; I wonder if he wouldn't have been phased out completely before long. Bill Dubay set him up as Harold Morris' replacement on the SNN Network, which was entirely appropriate and one of the few things he did in his tenure that I liked. I don't know if he got that idea from Fleming's notes or made it up on his own.

Anyway, all this attention that's being paid to Thriller lately has me a bit nervous; after being repeatedly told by not only Fleming and Von Eeden but a few others that no one was interested in reviving the title, and even that Paul Levitz himself didn't like it in the first place and would never greenlight its return, I had gotten used to the fact that it was dead and gone and even came to fear a "monkey's paw" scenario, in which DC brought it back at the hands of different creators who of course couldn't hope to rekindle what made the book so weird and wonderful (again, my opinion) and would want to bring THEIR spin, thinking they could correct the problems of the original...and what we would have would kinda look like Thriller, but would be something a lot more in line with the run of the mill DC comic, and these days especially that's kind of a daunting prospect.

Anyway, I was delighted to see that you listed it in your piece. It should be interesting to see what, if anything, happens.